I didn't see it coming;
I expected nothing else.
Thirteen years old, hiding behind the rules
so I didn’t have to face
that shortcoming, that missing piece.

Once I had accepted limitation as
the sublime:
something that would come in time.
The constraints, then, gave it meaning,
deciding who says what.
Syntax is rules, and rules are limitations.
Without them, we are-- what?

But in time I came to want it,
that freedom to--
I traded "pressure to not" for "pressure to do".
Peering through the rhetoric,
I ventured into the upper reaches, and
I came apart.
There was nothing to hold me together
in this elevator, its yellowed walls crumbling away.

“Not all freedom is good. You can have terrible freedom.”
Was it the mother or the Aunt that said this?
Or Friedrich “entsetzliche Freiheit”--

Ah, Schiller.
What of the Mrs? Did she have freedom
in her husband, in Richard F.?
More freedom in the
(****-and-) (ball-and-) chains
than in the haze of youth?
The most, then, (it can be presumed)
from her departures: first to Alaska,
then even farther north, from where none return.

As freedom dissolved into expectation,
itself now another limitation, I wondered.
Which had it worse:
the woman (machine) outside the yellowing elevator walls,
or the girl (ghost) pacing within?

it's over a decade old
holding secrets I can no longer withhold
it's once vibrant colors now faded
and as I look into it my past feels jaded
I never knew how long it would last
that my hold on a lie would be so steadfast

the immensity and the intensity of the illustration is penetrating
behind us, the sun was pulsating
dancing among clouds, her beams shot through
like the final recital of a dancer who will bid adieu

the two of us poised like Greek statues in the light
him, in a sweater woven with gold and by sprites
and myself in a cape formed among the seven wonders of the ancient world
in front of a mansion that holds tales untold
the steps eager to see our eyes grow by tenfold

but then in the ensuing photograph
it is only I that stands
the glamour of my cape shedding
becoming the source of clamor
the lavender shade of my jacket is molting
falling apart, it reveals
a truth that only time can see
that our fanciful clothing was only a disguise
conjured up to distract their eyes

this year is my year
i cut my teeth on the years before
i scraged my knees in '15
bled from my bitten tongue in ‘16
'17 saw me merciful and forgiving
and then loveless on the bathroom floor
sitting in bathtubs
my existence held
in the displacement of water in porcelain

this year is my year  
try and take it from my bloodied knuckles
take it from my hanging jaw
the years before chipped away at me
with chisel and work roughened hands
the years before cut me out of marble
carved my mouth closed
swathed me in veils, made my stone flesh
look soft

this year is my year
your chisels will blunt on my skin
and when you turn your back
to find something sharper
i'll slip down the stone steps
leave my veils on your studio chair
and melt out into the night

this year is my year
there’s no material thing keeping me
nothing mortal holds me here
this year i am free to drift
between the realms and rifts of space
i will be interstellar
hung in the place between stars

this year is my year
******* try to take it from me
i wonder if the years before
made you into diamonds too
the only thing that can cut me now
is me.

I wish I lived in Wayne’s World,
where Wayne and Garth are real.
I wish I had Cassandra’s curls,
and her *** appeal.

I wish I dated Jason Dean,
and coloured him impressed.
I wish I had the killer gene,
but never ever confess.

I wish I went to Ashfield Hospital,
and looked a little on edge.
Explored shutter island in the spittle,
and made the Marshall pledge.

I wish I lived with Yeats,
or in the lonely moated grange,
I wish I danced on table tops,
my body for money,  fair exchange.

I wish reality didn’t exist,
or better yet just me,
all those opportunities would be missed,
and at peace I’d finally be.

You know what I think is sad
I used to miss the way you would curse
I missed every lie you said,
even though your lying was the worst

The tapes in your bag said it all;
the discs you spun said 'whatevs'
or 'I'm deep and loving'
I betcha you thought people heard The Smiths
and didn't think you were bluffing.

Your poetry was garbage, too --
I don't blame you for scrapping your work.
You lied about cutting your legs,
the pain under your pale skin,
you exhausted every quirk,
and wished for more within.

I betcha you're sitting somewhere
twenty-something and super-bored.
Probably still choking on your cigarettes
against your matress board,
criticizing people thinking differently
I hope one day you read a book
and ask who would publish me

You're probably the words
stuck in some other's throat;
resenting you and the
****** Mountain Goats.
I never liked to criticize
the way you looked,
but your teeth are the
second most crooked
thing about you

THE MOMENT**

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.